West Virginia Blue
The Best Blogging Community in West Virginia Democratic politics, progressive policies, the good life and free living in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.
Kudos to WV Rep. Nick Rahall (D) for being the lead sponsor on H.R. 3534, the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act (CLEAR Act). This bill is the boldest offshore drilling safety legislation to pass the House of Representatives in over 30 years. The legislation passed the House of Representatives 209 - 193 earlier this evening.
The legislation is a comprehensive response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It removes the existing $75 million cap on oil companies' liability in the case of future spills. It also prohibits BP and companies with bad safety records from getting new offshore permits until they meet new safety requirements.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi commended Rep. Rahall for his leadership on the issue calling him a "visionary" for beginning work on issues of offshore drilling safety more than a year ago, well before the gulf oil spill.
Rep. Rahall commented, "While we may not know the exact cause of the incident, we clearly know what contributed to it. A culture of cozy relationships that had regulators interviewing for jobs on the same rigs they were supposed to be inspecting."
Thanks to Rep. Rahall's leadership, the foxes won't be guarding the hen house when it comes to keeping workers safe and preventing future offshore drilling disasters.
Unfortunately, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R) chose to vote as a rubber stamp for Minority Leader John Boehner and aligned herself with corrupt corporations like BP to oppose the legislation.
Apparently, Capito feels that oil companies shouldn't pay for their own messes, regulators should look the other way when companies put profit before safety, and there's no need to trim $5.3 billion from the deficit. Instead, we should just "drill baby drill."
Thankfully, Rep. Rahall was able to garner the support needed to pass his landmark legislation. Hopefully, Senators Rockefeller and Goodwin will be similarly successful in getting it passed in the Senate.
UPDATE: It was quite a week for Rep. Capito. On Thursday she also voted against providing care for 9/11 rescue workers who have faced health problems after the Sept. 11th attacks. Those who came to the rescue when our nation was under attack deserve better.
For their August issue, Details magazine profiles Ayn Rand fanboy and Republican candidate Rand Paul's quest to win Kentucky's open U.S. Senate seat.
You can see why Massey Energy and International Coal Group love the guy, and have chosen him as one of three candidates they're going to aid with a flood of corporate 527 money this fall.
Paul thinks the problem with mountaintop removal is just a branding issue, perhaps corrected if we simply stop referring to the "Appalachian Mountains."
"The top ends up flatter, but we're not talking about Mount Everest. We're talking about these little knobby hills that are everywhere out here."
But it was probably when Paul shared his thoughts on federal mine safety rules with a crowd at the Harlan Center that Don Blankenship started digging for his checkbook:
"The bottom line is I'm not an expert, so don't give me the power in Washington to be making rules. You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You'd try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don't, I'm thinking that no one will apply for those jobs."
The right's been romanticizing Libertarianism a lot this past year. Perhaps Paul's candidacy is a blessing in disguise, in that it shows just how regressive this type of thinking is.
Paul and his fellow wingnuts can wrap their ideology in all the talk of "freedom" they want, but it's painfully clear what this is all about - taking power away from the public, by transferring it away from a democratically-elected government and into the hands of unaccountable corporate officials.
The end result, in which the people ultimately have little or no say over their well being, is as undemocratic as it gets.
Just when you thought the U.S. Senate couldn't do any less for clean energy and the environment than it's (not) done so far, we now face the real possibility of what would amount to a "stop-work order" on the 40-year-old, wildly successful (e.g., studies finding benefits outweighing costs at a 40:1 ratio), Clean Air Act.
That's right: believe it or not, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is moving ahead with a sequel to Sen. Lisa Murkowski's nefarious attempt, earlier this summer, to gut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s power to protect the public health from dangerous pollutants, including harmful greenhouse gases. Just as bad, Rockefeller's proposal would keep America addicted to oil and other old, polluting energy technologies, while delaying or derailing our switch to a clean, prosperous energy economy.
Essentially, what Rockefeller is proposing would tell the EPA – at least for two years, although we know that justice delayed is often justice denied! - that it has to be asleep at the switch, that it must not hold polluters accountable, that it must look the other way whole Big Oil and Big Coal trash the environment. Is that the lesson the Senate learned from the Gulf of Mexico disaster? Really?
Fortunately, not everyone is so clueless as the U.S. Senate appears to be right now. For instance, in yesterday's Politico, two energy investors – one Democrat, one Republican – explained what's at stake in clear, compelling language.
We are not experts in vote counting or horse trading. But we do know how investors and markets will respond if Congress ultimately fails to put a market-based price on carbon. The response from capital will be brutal: Money will flow to places like China, Europe and India — and U.S. jobs will go with it.
The path to creating more U.S. jobs is simple: Pass legislation that eliminates uncertainty and levels the playing field, and investors will fund projects that create good jobs here at home. Rules bring certainty, certainty spurs investment, and investment creates jobs.
[...]
Take it from investors: Removing the uncertainty, and taking a more thoughtful approach to energy policy by putting a market price on carbon, can bring home new investments and jobs — and ensure that America leads the clean energy economy.
Instead, it now looks like the Senate not only won't be moving us forwards, but instead will be trying to move us significantly – and disastrously - backwards. What's truly stunning about this possibility is that, right now, the science of climate change is clearer and more disturbing than ever. Heat waves are getting worse, the ice caps are shrinking faster than ever, and scientists are telling us that the world is setting new temperature records almost every month, every year, and every decade. In addition, the results of our insatiable thirst for fossil fuels were demonstrated starkly and tragically, both in a West Virginia coal mine as well as in the Gulf of Mexico, on TV screens all across America in recent months. As if all this isn't bad enough, we also could run out of water.
The American people know this situation can't go on. In fact, recent polls show large majorities supporting an energy bill that would "[l]imit pollution, invest in domestic energy sources and encourage companies to use and develop clean energy...by charging energy companies for carbon pollution in electricity or fuels like gas." In other words, this is a case where good policy – limiting greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing our national security, safeguarding public health, jumpstarting a clean energy revolution – and good politics – strong poll results for doing just that - appear to align. Yet, the U.S. Senate appears ready to ignore both good policy and good politics, and actually move to make matters worse by gutting the EPA and letting polluters like BP off the hook.
Don’t let them do it. Call your Senators right now and tell them "hell no" to the "Let Polluters Pollute with Impunity Act." Also, while you’re at it, call the White House and tell President Obama that, if such a measure reaches his desk, he will veto it – no ifs, ands, or buts.
Take action today for a cleaner, stronger, and more sustainable future. Join NRDC Action Fund on Facebook and Twitter and stay up-to-date on the latest environmental issues and actions you can take to help protect our planet.
Huffington Post has a piece detailing how the owners of the Sago and Upper Big Branch mines are planning to form a 527 organization to target Democratic candidates in Kentucky and West Virginia.
This would allow them to spend millions to defeat "anti-coal" candidates - in other words, they want to take out anyone who would stick up for mine safety and has any interest in the environmental well-being of Appalachia.
The three races they're most interested in:
- Rep. Nick Rahall (D) vs Elliott "Spike" Maynard (R) in W.Va. 3rd Congressional District
- Rep. Ben Chandler (D) vs. Garland "Andy" Barr (R) in Kentucky's 6th Congressional District
- Jack Conway (D) vs. Rand "Segregation Forever" Paul (R) for Kentucky's U.S. Senate seat
The Kentucky Herald-Leader has a copy of a letter from International Coal Group vice-president Roger Nicholson, in which he's ecstatic over the newly established right of corporations to purchase officials:
"with the recent Supreme Court ruling, we are in a position to be able to take corporate positions that were not previously available in allowing our voices to be heard."
The donations from Don Blankenship and Sarah Palin to Maynard that were reported earlier this week are purely ceremonial. This is the form Massey's real electioneering effort will take.
Will Massey and ICG be upfront about their efforts this time, or will they again hide behind some kind of phony child advocacy group, as was the case in 2004?
Either way, if the past is any indicator, expect plenty of misleading ads, outright lies and a fall campaign full of ugliness.
West Virginia is ranked 43rd in measures of overall child welfare, according to the 21st annual National KIDS COUNT Data Book put out by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
West Virginia ranks 43rd in the nation overall in child well-being and in the bottom 10 states on four of the 10 indicators, including the percent of low-birthweight babies (46th), children living without secure parental employment (45th), children in poverty (43rd) and the child death rate (42nd). There was some good news for children in West Virginia: The state has improved on four of the 10 measures affecting child well-being since 2000 (infant mortality rate, child death rate, teen death rate and percent of children in poverty). However, in two measures (percent low-birthweight babies and percent of children in single parent families), conditions for West Virginia children have worsened; in two others(teen birth rate and percent of teens not in school and not high school graduates), conditions have remained unchanged; and two of the indicators are not comparable to previous years.
When you look at the maps at the county level, it is not surprising that the counties where King Coal rules strongest are also where children fare badly in overall well-being. King Coal isn't good at raising children.
Straight from the candidate, via his news release:
Why should a 95-year-old Democrat suddenly file his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in the August 28 primary?
1. As a long-time opponent of mountaintop removal, I want to give an opportunity to the thousands of opponents of mountaintop removal to register their opposition by casting their ballots for me.
2. I believe it is a violation of our time-honored system of free elections for one individual to anoint himself as an uncontested winner.
3. The voters of West Virginia are entitled to register their choice as the legitimate nominee of the Democratic Party for the November general election.
--Photo added by me
As Alison Knezevich of the Gazette reports, Hechler said at his press conference that Manchin "has turned a deaf ear to the pleas of those people that are adversely affected by mountaintop removal."
Hechler also said a victory for Manchin would not be a victory for MTR, which polls show the majority of West Virginians oppose:
"If I lose, it will not be a defeat for mountaintop-removal [opponents] because there are other reasons for why people will vote for Governor Manchin."
"I may be 95-years-old in my body, but I'm a teenager in my heart, head, and my thinking," Hechler said. "I swim everyday. I eat reasonably. I exercise and I'm in really good shape for 95 and I will enter this campaign WITH VIGOR!"
The man providing blood-soaked money to West Virginia Republicans really lacks any sense of shame:
If Don Blankenship had any sense of shame, he'd crawl into a mine and hide.
As CEO of Massey Energy, he has presided over a coal company that had thousands of violations in recent years, leading up to the April explosion that killed 29 of his miners. The company now faces a federal criminal investigation into what the government has called negligent and reckless practices.
But Blankenship must have no sense of shame, because he visited the National Press Club last week to complain about "knee-jerk political reactions" to mine deaths and to demand that the Obama administration lighten regulations on his dirty and dangerous company. "We need to let businesses function as businesses," an indignant Blankenship proclaimed. "Corporate business is what built America, in my opinion, and we need to let it thrive by, in a sense, leaving it alone."
The CEO was asked what he could have done to prevent the deadly explosion. "I probably should've sued MSHA" -- that's the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration -- "rather than waiting" until now, he said. In the future, he added, "you'll see not only coal companies but many companies resist the efforts of EPA and others that are impeding their ability to pursue their careers, or their happiness."
Poor CEO Blankenship. That mean federal government is not allowing him to pursue his happiness, just because his employees are dead. It brings to mind the sad plight of the BP CEO, Tony Hayward, who visited the Gulf Coast that his company has wrecked and complained that "I'd like my life back."
So would the dead miners and their families. Vote Republican if you want more dead miners because they are the people who would give Blankenship carte blanche to put profit ahead of people's lives.
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post looked into the question of how a vacancy in the governor's office would be filled if Manchin is elected to Sen. Byrd's term :
Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin would become acting governor.
After that, state law requires a special election to be called, but much like with the Senate seat, it's not clear when it would be held. Because of all the people who want to run for Manchin's seat and their conflicting agendas, the state legislature only bothered to change special election law for the current Senate vacancy and did nothing to change the regular special election law.
Translation: the situation is as unclear for a governor vacancy as it was for the Senate vacancy.
Tomblin has indicated he would likely call a special election for the next regularly scheduled election in 2012, which also happens to be when the seat would be up anyway. And he has every reason to want it that way. After all, he has long eyed the office and would get a leg up on the competition by spending two years doing the job he would be running for.
Some of the contenders Blake considers are State Treasurer John Perdue, Sen. Jeff Kessler, Sen. Brooks McCabe, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, Democratic Party Chairman Larry Puccio and U.S. Sen. Carte Goodwin.
The usual suspects appear on the GOP side: Raese, Capito and Ireland.
According to the AP, the campaign of disgraced judge Elliott "Spike" Maynard happily accepted a $4,800 contribution from his vacation partner, Massey CEO Don Blankenship.
Maynard is obviously running on Massey's dime:
Around $21,000 of Maynard's money during the quarter came from Massey employees, Blankenship's family and former political operatives including Thomas.
Maynard also took $3,500 from half-term Alaska governor and reality TV star Sarah Palin's PAC, and $2,000 from Rep. Shelley Moore Capito.
Palin, Capito and Blankenship also donated to GOP candidate David McKinley. McKinley's opponent, Democrat Mike Oliverio is calling on the Republican to return Blankenship's donations.
The article notes that Rep. Nick Rahall has more cash on hand than Maynard. But this, of course, is just pocket change compared to the kind of money Blankenship and Massey could use to try to purchase Rahall's seat.
With the recent Supreme Court ruling allowing unlimited ads from corporations, Blankenship and Massey could sink millions into a smear campaign on Maynard's behalf. The $3.5 million he used to buy Brent Benjamin's seat on the WV Supreme Court may have been just a warm-up.
-- illustration by Joe Moore
* Charlie Cook's reality-based view of why the DCCC is still confident about holding onto a House majority in Nov. (1) There aren't that many seats up for grabs, (2) Dems have done well in special elections and (3) the GOP doesn't have the $$ it needs to compete in enough races.
* Ballot order matters, but only a little bit. I think Ken Hechler and Mac Warner were the biggest winners and John Raese the biggest loser in the ballot order lottery for WV-SEN special election. What do you think?
DEMOCRAT:
Ken Hechler
Sheirl Fletcher
Joe Manchin, III
REPUBLICAN:
Thomas Ressler
Harry C. Bruner, Jr.
Frank T. Kubic
John R. Raese
Daniel Scott Rebich
Kenneth A. Culp
Albert Howard
Lynette Kennedy McQuain
Scott H. Williams
Mac Warner
MOUNTAIN:
Jesse Johnson
Climate
* It's really hot out. It's been a summer full of really hot. I fear for how many summer sequels are ahead in the upcoming decades--today's weather is annoying and inconvenient, but if this becomes a new normal it spells all sorts of trouble.
* Just like Duncan Black says: "I'm sure there are very good reasons a stupid hippy like me can't understand why the government can't directly hire thousands of people to go knock on doors and paint roofs white, but I have no idea what they are."
* Mitch Albom gets it exactly right on the Sherrod fiasco: "If a house is burned to the ground ... first you blame the guy who started the fire, right?"
The climate bill blame game has begun. When I first started writing this post about the so-called death of the climate bill, I literally pointed the finger at just about everyone, including myself. The anger poured out, and I was frank in my assessment as well as unforgiving in the motives behind this latest setback.
After I was done with my self-loathing tantrum, the kids ran in the door from camp and I was swept up in the lovely reality of my family's banter. It is summer, so the pace in our home is a bit more relaxed in the evening. We aren't quite as quick to rush through dinner, toss the kids in a bath, and then march them off to bed. Ice cream and extra cuddles are relished, and I am reminded each year at this time why I do this job.
Later, after progeny were tucked in, I went back to my draft blog post to spruce it up. I reread my rage, disappointment, and irrational ramblings and was embarrassed. And I asked myself "What good is all this blame going to do?"
At the end of the day, it is my kids - and your kids - who lose when we implode. If you think kids have a lot to say about their parents now on Dr. Phil, can you imagine what our children will say in 50 years should we fail to get our act together?
The country should be ready for this. The facts are on our side. As we witness the worst industry-caused environmental catastrophe in our history, the worst coal mining disaster in 40 years, and sweat through the hottest first 6 months of any year on record, it is clear that there's never been a more urgent time to move forward with a smart clean energy and climate plan.
Unfortunately, the politicians just aren't there. At every juncture during this debate, a minority, led by the Republican leadership and supported by a few impressionable (I might say pathetic) Democrats, has obstructed the opportunity to solve America's energy problems, preferring to leave the worst polluters and the big petro-dictators in control of our energy policy, while tax-payers are forced to pay for their messes.
Oopsy... there goes that blame again. Let's focus on what we can do next.
Hope is not lost. Of course, the closer we get to the midterm elections, the more challenging passing a bill becomes. Still, it's not impossible. In fact, the Senate has passed almost every single bedrock environmental law in the fall of an election year or in the "lame duck" session following an election. Here are just a few examples:
o Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) - 1996 Amendments: 8/6/96
o Food Quality Protection Act: 8/3/96
o Energy Policy Act of 1992: 10/24/92
o Clean Air Act of 1990: 11/15/90
o SDWA - 1986 Amendments: 6/19/86
o CERCLA (Superfund): House 9/23/80, Senate 11/24/80, POTUS 12/11/80
o Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA): 10/21/76
o Toxic Substances & Control Act (TSCA): 10/11/76
o SDWA: 12/16/74
o Clean Water Act: 10/18/72
o Establishment of the EPA: first proposed 7/9/70, established 12/2/70
o National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA): 1/1/70
o The Wilderness Act: 9/3/64
As this list demonstrates, the Senate and the environmental movement are no strangers to passing major legislation right before - or just after - an election.
I don't want to overpromise success. This is an uphill battle. But if you and I show up to every town hall, rally, spaghetti dinner, and other rituals of election year and fight for our kids... fight for our country... fight for our America... we can turn the tide. Without that kind of passion, we will all lose. That's an outcome we must try hard to avoid, on behalf of people, communities, large and small businesses - oh, and our kids, sleeping peacefully or playing happily around the country.
In the meantime, we must also protect what we already have, like a plethora of state laws and the federal Clean Air Act. I recommend reading David Doniger's blog on Switchboard today that really outlines how we can make progress with the tools we have right now.
In coming weeks and months, we must continue to push forward for a strong, clean energy and climate bill, just like we have done countless times in the past. I am done with blame. History is on our side. Are you?
Take action today for a cleaner, stronger, and more sustainable future. Join NRDC Action Fund on Facebook and Twitter and stay up-to-date on the latest environmental issues and actions you can take to help protect our planet.
Copyright 2009 West Virginia Blue
Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified.
This site exists thanks to financial support from BlogPAC, the tireless efforts of volunteer contributors and continued participation from this community. The views expressed at West Virginia Blue belong soley to their respective authors.
